Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Has Lyons ever played Naperville North...

...in football? Not since 2004 at least. And the two schools didn't have a common opponent this year either.

Lyons (7-2) is seeded No. 19 in 8A and ranked No. 21 in the Sun-Times and No. 44 in MaxPreps (behind 4-5 Wheaton North!). But don't look too hard for the LaGrange squad in Mike Helfgot's Top Twenty in the Tribune. (Maybe he would rank them No. 21, too.)

Here's their 2016 schedule (with home team in CAPS):

Lyons 19, WARREN 7  
Lyons 36, MORTON 14  
Lyons 31, PROVISO WEST 6  
LYONS 38, Leyden 13  
Lyons 28, GLENBARD WEST 14  
LYONS 23, Downers Grove North 6  
Hinsdale Central 28, LYONS 21
OAK PARK AND RIVER FOREST 27, Lyons 3  
LYONS 38, York 0

The Lions split with the four winning teams they played, beating Leyden and Glenbard West (both 7-2) while losing to Hinsdale Central (9-0) and OPRF (7-2) late in the season.

Naperville North (8-1), for its part, is seeded No. 14 in 8A and ranked No. 6 in MaxPreps, but only No. 12 in the Trib and No. 16 in the Times. Here's their schedule:

Naperville North 42, SANDBURG 14
NAPERVILLE NORTH 41, Metea Valley 40 OT
Naperville North 33, WHEATON NORTH 7
Naperville North 28, LAKE PARK 23
NAPERVILLE NORTH 21, Glenbard North 13
Neuqua Valley 35, NAPERVILLE NORTH 20
Naperville North 50, Naperville Central 31
Naperville North 17, WAUBONSIE VALLEY 14
NAPERVILLE NORTH 28, Wheaton Warrenville South 17

The Huskies beat two winning teams this year, Glenbard North (7-2) and Waubonsie Valley (5-4), while losing to only one, Neuqua Valley (8-1).

Who wins this one? I gotta go with the home team.

Yep, that's Bob Odenkirk, at top, a 1980 (?) graduate of Naperville North.* According to his Wikipedia page:

He would later say that he grew up "hating" Naperville because "it felt like a dead end, like Nowheresville. I couldn't wait to move into a city and be around people who were doing exciting things."    

Well, Naperville won't be "Nowheresville" this Friday when the Lions show up to play the Huskies. It's my Game of the Week.

* In a previous post I mentioned that David Hasselhoff is a 1970 graduate of LT.

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